What explains the lunacy of our present political leadership? The explanations are varied, of course, but they generally cannot be grouped under stupidity. Ignorance, often, but stupidity no. You don’t get to the positions of influence that these people occupy because you are unable to tie your own shoes. The question is not a matter of intelligence, but rather what they believe intelligence is for. At the end of the day, as they have come to believe, intelligence is a device that evolution gave you so that you could watch out for numero uno.
When a nation gets to the point where they are destroying wealth in the name of creating it, what came unhinged? When critics of destroying wealth in the name of creating it say something like, “ummm,” and get shouted down as haters of humanity, what is the name of this particular derangement syndrome?
We see the phenomenon in other areas. A drunk can know perfectly well that drink is killing him, but to turn away from what is destroying him will bring about an acute convulsion. He has a choice. There is the gradual and comparatively smooth path toward death, and the convulsive and tumultuous period of going cold turkey, and life on the other side.
This is an illustration on the individual level, but when a nation reaches this stage, the leaders all recognize that a political convulsion or upheaval will mean that many of them, if not most of them, will lose their jobs. The rhetoric, of course, is all about public service. But if what the public needs is a bout of the DTs, and to watch some recessionary pink elephants for a few fiscal quarters, then what our solons will actually do is serve us up another drink, a stiff one. And they will do this until we are face down in the gutter. This is called more-of-the-hair-of-the-dog-that-bit-you economics.
Now this explains those whose personal livelihood depends on America staying drunk — the bartender, the keg delivery guy, the gang at the brewery, all those guys. But what explains those Christian who, from a distance, and no apparent personal stake in it, tell us that what Christ would have done in this situation is serve up another round of real hooch? What explains the Christians who do not have a personal interest in it, like your congressman does?
Certain sins of empathetic connection operate at a distance. These are the sins of sentimentalism, envy, jealousy, personal inadequacy, pettiness, and so on. A man in Washington D.C. who fights to keep his department from being closed down — because he will be out on the street if it does — is like a dog fighting over a piece of meat. It is not a flattering picture, but it is not inexplicable either.
But how to explain the Christian left? Christians with a vivid imagination and a romantic nature have no trouble projecting all of their personal issues onto the screen they call America. They can keep their distance, believe whatever they want to, and feed their own sense of indignant righteousness, which they keep chained up in their emotional basement. What actually happens to poor people as a result of their suggested policies is not something they really care about. They are more interested in feeding their grievances than they are interested in feeding the poor.
The welfare bureaucrat in Washington loves the poor in a different way — the poor are a cash cow. They are the butter spread on his side of the bread. The conflict of interest is palpable, and not hard to explain at all.
But the suburban aspiring Amos reads Sojourners, and is full of fulminations against hardhearted conservatives, all while driving an expensive Volvo all around his side of Bashan Hills. He shops at Whole Foods, using a recyclable burlap bag, one that will hide the fact that he pays three times as much for his food as normal people do. He has scabs all over his heart because he won’t stop picking at it. And he calls it compassion.